Resonance Compression of Acoustic Beams in Crystals

Abstract

The resonant excitation of an intense elastic wave through nonspecular reflection of a special pump wave in a crystal is described. Geometric criteria are found under which mode conversion, when the incident and reflected beams belong to different acoustic branches, coexists with total internal reflection of an acoustic beam. In this case, the entire energy of an incident pump wave is spent on the excitation of a narrow intense reflected beam close in structure to an eigenmode. A consistent choice of orientations of the sagittal plane and crystal surface that excludes the reflection of a parasitic wave of leakage is found. The resonance parameters have been found for a medium with an arbitrary anisotropy. General relations are concretized for monoclinic, orthorhombic, trigonal, tetragonal, cubic, and hexagonal systems. Estimates and illustrations are given for a series of such crystals. The intensity of the reflected beam increases with its narrowing, but its diffraction divergence also increases with this narrowing. Nevertheless, the intensity of the beam can be increased by a factor of 5-10 at sufficiently high frequencies while keeping its divergence at an acceptable level. Amplification by two orders of magnitude can be achieved by compressing the beam in two dimensions through its double reflection.